Cheating the Children

While President Biden is trying to win a court victory for his student debt forgiveness proposal, he should be focusing instead on the latest dreadful report by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP).

In what is called the nation’s report card, NAEP has released its latest findings on the performance of fourth- and eighth-graders in such critical subjects as math and reading. It makes for unpleasant reading.As The New York Times reports, the NAEP says students in most states and significantly across all demographic groups have experienced troubling setbacks in these subjects, representing the deepest declines recorded since the organization began compiling data in 1990.While some blame the pandemic, which led to the closing of many schools and a shift to remote learning, the NAEP says the numbers were declining before the pandemic struck.Interestingly, the NAEP conducted a study of public vs. private schools in 2005 and concluded “Students at grades 4, 8, and 12 in all cate …